The United States Postal Service (USPS) is an independent government agency that provides mail delivery and other services to the public. The USPS is widely recognized as a safe and reliable means for sending and receiving mail and other items. With the advent and steady growth of electronic mail and electronic commerce, the physical mail stream will increasingly be utilized for sending and receiving packages. In an effort to lower operating costs and increase value for their customer base, many high volume delivery users prepare packages and other items with automated equipment and presort and label the items prior to placement of the items into the delivery system. Delivery users realize a cost savings due to presorting, for example, because many delivery system operators provide discounts on presorted items because the amount of sorting necessary by the delivery system operator is reduced.
Therefore, there is a need for the United States Postal Service and many other organizations to efficiently provide item verification in order to confirm that items are compatible with the delivery system and to confirm that the delivery fees for the items are proper. More specifically, delivery system operators desire to efficiently provide verification of an item before the item is placed in a delivery system. This is because in an increasingly competitive environment, it is essential for a service provider to reduce costs and exceed the expectations of those who receive a service.
One solution to the item verification problem is for the delivery system operator to receive unconfirmed information relative to a group of items placed in the delivery system and for the delivery system operator to randomly check individual items within the group for compliance with the unconfirmed information. For example, a catalog retail company may wish to have a plurality of catalogs sent to a group of prospective customers. In doing so, the company prepares items by placing a plurality of catalogs into a plurality of packages and places address labels, postage and tracking indicia on the items. Sorting the items to some extent, the company may deliver the items to the delivery system operator along with a manifest showing how the company believes the items were sorted along with the size, weight and postage amount placed on the items (this manifest may not necessarily reflect how the items were actually sorted or accurate weight, size, or postage). In this situation, having no verification of the information combined in the manifest, the delivery system operator must perform some checking of the items. This checking may comprise a random sampling of the items to determine some probabilistic certainty of the accuracy of the manifest.
Great inefficiencies are created in this procedure because, for example, the delivery system operator must perform a verification, expending money and human resources. In addition, the sampling is random and thus each item is not checked for accuracy of attributes or for sorting accuracy. Accordingly, efficiently providing item attribute verification remains an elusive goal. Thus, there remains a need for efficiently providing item attribute verification in a delivery system. In addition, there remains a need for efficiently providing item attribute verification prior to placing the item in the delivery system.